


I Bought A Bed

by whiskerprince



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: M/M, Semi-Unreliable Narrator, Slow Burn, Soulmate AU, friend dates, non-chronological storytelling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-02-21
Packaged: 2019-11-02 02:31:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,418
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17879390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whiskerprince/pseuds/whiskerprince
Summary: Minho has an obsession with buying the perfect mattress. Jisung is along for the ride and the dinner dates. Together, they chase the tail of a dream.





	I Bought A Bed

**Author's Note:**

> title and inspiration drawn from donald antrim's personal essay of the same name. 
> 
> this idea has been kicking around in my head for a while. the feverish push-pull of buying a bed braided with the story of his mother's death was a story that screamed at me to emulate. on twitter, i mentioned "minsung soulmate au but it's just them doing the same things they always do, forever" as well as a desire to write about their little dinner dates and casual intimacy. and so, this fic was born to scratch all three itches at once.
> 
> it may be a little odd, but i think you'll like it.

 

 

"Well?" Jisung asks. "How do you like it?"

Minho turns on his side. "Can I be honest with you?"

Jisung nods.

"It feels exactly the same as the last seven we tried."

Jisung makes a face. "Yeah, a little."

There's a beat of silence.

"Jokbal?" Jisung offers.

"Don't have to ask me twice," Minho says, jackknifing up into a sitting position, then bouncing to his feet. He pulls Jisung up and off the bed. They shove their socked feet into beat-up Nike's, wiggling their heels into the back of the shoes. Jisung bends down to fix his laces. Then they're off; bowing to the KARE manager before they push through the glass doors. She offers them a tired wave. It doesn't matter that they didn't buy today. They'll be back.

 

\---XXX---

 

It all began with Jisung yarfing all over Minho's bunk in the dorms.

He did quite a spectacular job of it, too—if you were going to heave ho all over your hyung's stuff anyway, why not make an absolute spectacle of it? Over the comforter, the down blanket, the top sheet, the mattress sheet, the mattress itself where Minho's lazy bed-making job had failed him, his pillowcase, his sleeping boxers and sleep shirt, and his iPhone charging cable. Jisung made a right Jackson Pollock of Minho's sleeping arrangements, all because he had tried to muscle past his lactose intolerance without taking a lactase pill.

That's how Jisung ended up in the picture, and how the actual story begins. But the truth of the matter is Minho's life-long obsession with beds starts at age seven, waking from a startling and vivid dream of being in a body that is his but not his, in a bed that is his but not his, feeling with skin that is his, but not yet his.

His family somnologist sits Minho down in a chair that seems to envelop him and tells him that his _temenos_ is in the domain of touch, and that by revisiting this specific dream, he can find clues to his other half—his soulmate. The doctor asks Minho to describe his dream in as much detail as he can remember, but not to stress: this is a dream he will be having over and over until he finally meets his soulmate.

Okay, Minho says, and does his best to remember what the dream had felt like. He had been lying on a mattress of some kind. Softer, firmer than the futon he slept on at home. A real princess bed, he says, and the somnologist laughs and assures Minho that one day he really will sleep on that princess bed. Okay, Minho says, and there are also sheets. Smooth linen that doesn't make his legs itch and feels like wearing a fancy tablecloth. The room he's in is a little too cold for comfort, but his eyes and limbs are still so heavy. I've just woken up, Minho reckons, and the doctor tells him he's done a wonderful job.

He doesn't tell Minho any more about his _temenos_ , but he does call in Minho's parents and talks to them at length while Minho sits in the plastic waiting room chair and swings his legs, looking at a painting of spider lilies.

Some of Minho's friends already have their _temenos_ , but none of them have one in the touch domain. He brags to them about how unique his _temenos_ is; no it isn't, Hyunsuk in 2-A has a touch _temenos_ too; shuddup, Hyunsuk's cousin is an actor so maybe only _really special_ people have a touch one. One of his friends cries, and then Minho is called to the office and scolded for bragging about his sacred gift, and don't you know you shouldn't be talking about that anyway? It's not right to be talking about something so personal. That's for you and your doctor alone to discuss, Minho-yah. Goodness sake.

When it can't be used as a bragging chip, Minho doesn't have much interest in soulmates. So long as he and his friends sleep on futons, there'll be no soulmates to be had. Minho rests easy.

 

\---XXX---

 

"So...you're getting a whole new mattress?"

Jisung is clutching at his bicep and hovering in the doorway of Minho and Woojin's room, unsure of his welcome. He can't meet Minho's eyes. "It can't be...cleaned?"

"I'm not mad," Minho says, sighing. The bottom of the bunk he shares with Woojin is empty, occupied only by slats of pale wood, like the bones of some ancient fish. Now, Minho unrolls a futon across the floor, covered with a spare sheet and blanket for winter. His pillow is without a case, pending new purchase. Minho kicks it with a socked foot to fluff it. When he looks up, Jisung looks sick again.

"It's really okay," Minho says quickly, fearing another eruption across his bedding. "I've been meaning to buy a new mattress for a while."

"No you haven't," Jisung mumbles. "You can just be mad at me hyung, it's okay. I'd be mad at me too."

"No, really, I have," Minho says, and it's the truth. He's twenty years old; comfortably old enough to pursue bedfellows now, and one of their older sunbaes just found her soulmate. She had a touch _temenos_ , too. Minho read the whole article on Naver about it. Jisung's accident is nothing but an excuse to pursue the thread of curiosity unraveling before him.

"If you really feel so bad about it, help me find a new mattress," Minho suggests, partially because Jisung looks utterly kicked, and partially because Jisung is his best friend, and seeing his best friend look kicked make Minho feel kicked as well. Jisung agrees. It couldn't take more than a week or two to find the right mattress, after all. That's what Minho thinks too, at first.

 

\---XXX---

 

"I've heard ACE has really nice spring mattresses," Jisung says, then lets out a long belch.

Minho doesn't look up from the catalog he'd snatched from the mail. He has a red pen cap in between his teeth and is circling beds he's interested in and crossing out the brands and models he's already tried. _New! Stainless steel squeak-free technology! Cross wire support! Green tea essential oil built-in memory foam! Remote control back massager! Electric heating pad!_

"I just don't think," Minho says, making an 'X' across another picture, "that a heating pad is a good idea. Did you know people have cooked alive, sleeping under an electric blanket that was turned on too high? There have been house fires. And now they want to put that _inside_ a flammable mattress?" Minho shakes his head. "I don't understand what the world is coming to anymore."

"Ooo, green tea essential oils!" Jisung says, reading the catalog upside down. "Your face could use that, hyung."

Minho levels him with a dead-eyed look. "After this cheat day? We'll both need full exfoliation."

Jisung shrugs, dipping one of the spicy fried chicken pieces into sesame oil. Before them: two massive boats of fried chicken, one plain and one marinated in spicy house sauce. A tray of three individual sauces and crushed salt in front of each of them. And a couple of Kirins, because Minho is cheap when it comes to beer. The air is thick with oil. Minho can feel his pores clogging with every breath he takes. But it's Jisung's choice and he will begrudge him this shitty, delicious meal.

The restaurant is a chain, but it's crowded with mismatched, sticky tables surrounded by uncomfortable metal chairs and a single, ancient cable television mounted on the wall, the way any good fried chicken place should be. The walls are painted in parody of traditional Korean art, portraying various mockeries of parables. Minho would probably enjoy it more if he didn't have his hood up and his head down. On a Tuesday when school isn't in session, the markets and restaurants around Ewha Womans University station aren't bustling, but there are still enough young people that Minho and Jisung run the risk of being caught if they're too careless. Minho would have insisted on somewhere a station over, but the ACE furniture store is only a couple blocks from their fried chicken.

He spits out the pen cap and replaces it with a chicken leg encrusted in salt. He thumbs through the pages of the catalog, spotted with saucy fingerprints. "Maybe tonight will be the night," he says.

"Maybe!" Jisung says, inhaling chicken breast like air, then guzzling his beer and belching again.

Minho lets the catalog fall onto the table, the edge dipping in the Thai peanut sauce. "Why do I bring you with me, again?"

"Bouncability tester," Jisung reminds him. "Since you'll be boinking in that bed, you need—"

"Please," Minho says. "For the love of getting laid, please never call it that again."

Jisung grins, lips pulling back to his gums. "You the boss, boss."

Minho fights back the instinctual urge to be fond. "You have a peppercorn in your teeth."

"Saving it for an emergency."

"Yeah? Like what?"

"Like when the store manager gets frustrated that we've jumped on every bed and we still won't even buy cushion pads for the bedframe. I can be like, 'Ahhh, hyung! I think my mouth is burning off! I have to go to the emergency room!' and then we can run away."

Minho buries his face back in the catalog. "You never know," he mutters. "This one might have the perfect fit."

When he glances up again, Jisung's eyes are scrunched into kind half-moons. He bumps their knees together under the table. "Yeah, hyung," he says. "You never know. Maybe this will be the one."

 

\---XXX---

 

The look on the ACE manager's face when Minho and Jisung push through the doors an hour before closing is indeterminable. Obligatory welcoming smile, of course, but something in the drooping of the corner of his lips wants to ask what the hell two youths are doing in a mattress store at 9PM. Minho, used to the treatment at this point, has no patience for this man's uncertainty. He approaches with marked-up catalog in hand, tugging his face mask down to his chin.

"Manager-nim," he greets. "I'm looking to try out these five mattresses. Do you have them in stock?"

The manager flusters at Minho's directness, but nevertheless leads him to the back, informing Minho of the sales this week and new arrivals, as if Minho hadn't been mattress searching for months. Minho pretends to pay attention, making the right noises of interest at the right times.

"The Comfort Plus Firm is one of our most popular models," the manager is saying. "Do you have trouble sleeping, Minho-ssi?"

"Not really," Minho says.

"Well, in any case, this mattress gives great back support and a guaranteed better sleep within two weeks of installation. May I ask what it is that has drawn you to this line? Perhaps I can help you find similar products?"

"No need," Minho says. "I'm only trying these because I haven't tried them yet. I'll know the right one the moment I lie on it."

"Alright," the manager says. "Does your—"

He trips over the word to describe Jisung. Friend, most likely, but what friend came _mattress_ shopping? A brother or cousin, then, if it weren't for the fact that Jisung looked like a cleaned stick of yakitori and Minho was a meaty bitch. It _was_ 2019, so boyfriend wasn't _impossible_ —

"Roommate," Minho says.

"Ah." The manager clears his throat. "Does your roommate want to...try out the beds too?"

Together, they watch Jisung bounce his butt on the end of a bed while he picks something—most likely that bloody peppercorn—out of his teeth, then wipe it on the mattress and sweep his eyes over the room, pretending as if nothing had happened.

"...If it'll keep him out of your hair," Minho manages.

"Thanks," the manager says dryly.

Minho calls Jisung over and together they throw themselves into a trust fall against the first of the Comfort Plus Firm mattresses. The bounce is weak—the mattress is sturdy and dense, making Minho's back sigh thankfully. The layering rearranges his spine back into place. He doesn't doubt that this mattress would give him a better sleep. Anyone who bought the beauty would sleep soundly and satisfied for years and years to come.

"Well?" Jisung asks.

Minho closes his eyes, calls the dream to the forefront of his memory, and tries to put himself in the body of that other-him.

"You are getting very sleepy," Jisung says in a deep, slow voice. "You are feeling sexy. Very, very sexy. Probably because you just had sex. Or are about to have sex. This _is_ the right mattress. And when you open your eyes—"

Jisung had gradually been moving closer to Minho as he spoke and now with his mouth pressed to Minho's ear, breath and lips tickling the shell of it, Minho giggles and squeaks, trying to scrunch his body up like an accordion. Jisung bats at him, holding his shoulder down and throwing a leg over his body to keep him from wriggling away.

"And when—shh, just hold still—" Jisung croons lovingly into Minho's ear, "—and when you open your eyes, your soulmate will be there in all his double-cheeked, full-tittied glory ready to put you straight through this, your perfect mattress."

Minho giggles again. "But what if I open my eyes and it's the store manager?"

Jisung pauses. "Then I guess you better find the perfect wheelchair to wheel him into a nursing home with."

"That's _mean_ ," Minho whines. "He's only like, forty or something."

"Then open your eyes and get ready to see wrinkly ballsack for the rest of your— _oof!_ "

Minho's eyes pop open and he throws himself onto Jisung, shoving at Jisung’s face while Jisung shoves at his face. "Hey, man!" Jisung protests. "I'm just trying to help you find your soulmate!"

"You're a bastard," Minho says. Jisung sticks out his tongue and slobbers all over Minho's hand, proving his point. Minho withdraws, disgusted. "Nasty."

"Takes one to know one, wrinkle-balls," Jisung says, crossing his arms behind his head with a smug grin.

"Hey, if you want a face-full of my balls, all you have to do is ask."

"Promise?"

Minho lets out an exasperated _ugh!_ and moves onto the next bed, Comfort Plus Firm (Extra Firm). Jisung follows not long after. They try the Extra Firm, but it feels too much like Minho's futon at the dorm; they try the Lumbar Support, but there's a weird bump a third of the way down the bed; they try the Gentle Firm, but Jisung rejects it on the grounds that he won't let Minho meet his soulmate on an oxymoron of a mattress; they try the Firm (With Rods) but it sounds like a weird sex thing and they end up laughing too much about it to give the mattress a proper chance. In the end, the manager looks a little grayer, Jisung a little brighter, and Minho nowhere closer to finding the bed of his dream.

 

\---XXX---

 

Minho doesn't mean for his soulmate search to be as sexual a thing as it is, but he was never given a choice. There are a large proportion of people who find their soulmates after one night stands. They wake up on a stranger's bed, hungover, only to find that it's the _right_ bed, the _right_ smell of dried vomit, the _right_ sound of a roommate practicing keyboard at ten in the morning on a Sunday. And then they look at the devil they fell into bed with and just like that, they find their soulmate.

It doesn't have to be sexual. Sometimes it's a hospital bed; waking up to see the nurse taking care of you has the set of Mickey Mouse scrubs you've been waiting for your whole life. Some couples share a bed together for years before it clicks. Sometimes it's at the edge of the bed, bumping elbows with your best friend playing video games. But it would be foolish to ignore the sexual implications of a bed, Minho's somnologist told his parents, who told him. There was no reason to worry until he was older.

And he didn't. His _temenos_ wasn't something so common that he had to be on edge all the time, waiting for the pieces to finally click. His wasn't the smell of vanilla or a shape in the clouds. And even if it had been, Minho didn't care. He had Soonie and Doongie to play with. He had his dance classes. He had the one unlocked broom closet on the second floor of the dance studio. And he had as many moments as he could steal, cramming his body onto another boy in that closet. He had his pick of hot mouths and shaking fingers and an expanse of skin to lap the sweat off of. Things like soulmates were inconsequential when he had the attention of older boys and the brush of their stubble against his jaw to make him shiver.

Things get more difficult after debut. No one told him that. As a trainee, Minho could do whatever he wanted, as blatantly as he wanted, as long as he didn't rub it in the face of his vocal coach or dance instructor. No one was trailing a back-up dancer or unremarkable JYP trainee, at least not to the point that they would notice his salaciousness. But after debut, it was slim pickings to find a trainee willing to risk scandal just to come. Definitely no idols prepared to take that leap.

Was Minho vaguely curious about his soulmate and in need of a new bed? Yes. Was he horny as hell and tired of tugging his own dick? Also yes. Chan was not going to let Minho bring home a stranger to bed if he knew about it, but what Chan didn't know probably wouldn't come to bite anyone in the ass. There could only be so many mattress stores. There could only be so many beds.

 

\---XXX---

 

"Hey," Jisung says over his shoulder and Minho pauses, lowering the rice cake from his mouth. He's about to ask _What?_ when Jisung leans down and sucks the rice cake from between his chopsticks. Why does Minho bother anymore?

"So," Jisung says, chewing through a sticky mouthful, "Kingdom is gonna be out in Hongdae tonight. You down or what?"

"There a store nearby?"

"Hanssem is off the main drag," Jisung says, shrugging.

"That's a _department_ store."

"Apparently the big-big one has a small mattress department. C'mon, why are you fighting me? You _love_ Kingdom."

"Hongdae on a Thursday is so iffy."

Jisung purses his lips. "I'll buy you something."

"Done," Minho agrees immediately, Jisung yowling over his shoulder about the unfairness of having to buy Minho's love or some bullshit. Heh, Minho is gonna get _hella_ shoes.

Jisung knows Hongdae better than Minho, so he picks the restaurant. It's a barbecue place with an aggressive large and neon sign out front a block off the main road, down a backstreet that buskers and singers liked to perform on. It's clever, actually—Jisung reserved them a table overlooking the street and in the corner. The sign is too bright for anyone from the street to look up at them for long, and hidden in a secluded corner, the other patrons don't give them a second glance. Jisung orders brisket and Minho orders spicy chicken and kimchi soup for them to share.

Out on the street, two different singers are competing for attention—a boy with a guitar standing in front of a mic singing Sam Kim, and a girl on the top of a wall, guitar propped up in her lap, singing an AKMU B-side. Conversation from passersby rises up in short jumps, usually an exclamation from a group of girls chatting or a couple of old men laughing. Several groups of tourists creep by, eyes running over the unfamiliar lettering on every building and speaking in an equally unfamiliar tongue. Minho thinks it might be German.

He looks across the barbecue and sees Jisung also looking out over the street, a soft smile on his face, his ear tilted just slightly out to the street. It's hard to find Jisung at peace like this; usually only after a good meal when he's passed out in Hyunjin's arms. He and Jisung don't take themselves or their relationship seriously, that's just who they are, but Minho doesn't really feel like cracking a joke when he sees Jisung smiling like that.

"Is it right?" Minho asks.

"No," Jisung says without turning to him. "But it could be. That's how it is for you, too, isn't it? Every time you lie down on those beds. Not right; but it could be."

"Yeah," Minho agrees.

Their waiter comes by with the banchan and the kimchi soup. Jisung snaps up the pears while Minho makes his way through the seaweed salad, trying to salvage his diet at least a little. Jisung offers him a pear, hand cupped beneath his chopsticks, and Minho takes it. He blows on the kimchi soup and offers Jisung a spoonful in return. It's a bit hot—Jisung's eyes water and Minho calls him a pussy; then takes a bite and ends up coughing. But it's good and it's warm and Jisung does his best CF audition for too-spicy-kimchi-soup and manages to hold himself together through Minho's giggling. Jisung pours Minho's water and manages not to "accidentally" spill it all over him. A busking group further along the street play EXO's _Tempo_. Two cars crawl down the street at a pedestrian's pace.

"Do you know if it's in Hongdae?" Minho asks. "If it is, we can come here more often. This is more important to you than it is to me."

"More important than you getting a mattress?"

"You know what I mean."

Jisung shakes his head, smiling softly. "I don't know. It could even be in Busan, given how shitty my luck is. I just...feel like it has to be here."

"That's okay," Minho says. "By the time we're both done, we'll have walked every inch of Seoul and eaten at every single restaurant."

Jisung laughs.

Their meat arrives. Minho throws a few pieces of brisket on the grill, then grabs the tongs and holds up one of the chicken breasts for Jisung to hack at with scissors. When they've covered the grated surface of the grill, Minho pulls the fan down and lets the pieces cook. "Meat, meat, meat," Jisung sings under his breath, eyes on the grill.

There's a reason Minho does the cooking. Jisung is over-eager. He will turn the pieces over and over and they will take forever to cook. Maybe too raw in the center. Jisung is passionate; he wants it now. Jeongin is the fox in their group, but when Minho and Jisung watch Planet Earth together and they show the foxes leaping up and into the snow over and over, he turns to Jisung and grins. _Look, that's you. So hungry_. And Jisung rolls his eyes. _Yeah, yeah._

Minho isn't afraid to wait to get what he wants. He's the lynx in the snowdrift, watching every twitch of the hare's nose. He waits for the perfect opportunity to shine through. He'll wait forever if he has to. Learning to dance takes time. Debut takes time. Finding a mattress takes time. If he makes that leap and there's no rabbit under his claws after all that waiting, was there a point to doing anything at all?

But sometimes the hare wanders off before he can strike. Sometimes the meat burns on the grill. Sometimes you buy the wrong bed. There's no certainty when you're hunting something; no certainty on the underside of the cut of beef. There has to be a way to find a soulmate when you don't know who or when or where they are.

Jisung's brisket turns brown quicker than the pink fades from Minho's cuts of chicken. He darts in with his chopsticks, flipping them just in time to get the nice warm brown of a slight char without burning. Minho lets his chicken cook, turning them when he's good and ready, the meat firming up and turning pale. Jisung makes a wrap from a perilla leaf stuffed with rice, brisket, and the house red sauce and feeds it to Minho, his fingers brushing the edges of Minho's lips.

"Would you look at that," Jisung says as Minho takes the chicken off the grill. "We make a pretty good team."

 

\---XXX---

 

The busking street in Hongdae runs south until it splits into two smaller side streets that only motorcycles and pedestrians can fit through. This is where the best of the bargain shopping happens. The clothes are all rips off of bigger brands or shops by tiny local lines, but Jisung and Minho aren't making big enough bucks to be walking willy-nilly through the high-class parts of Lotte Tower. For day-to-day clothes, the markets will do. Minho, predictably, turns them towards Street A, his pick of the litter. It's a nice night out, so the shoes are displayed on the wooden deck that rises in front of the actual building. Minho makes a beeline for their selection. Jisung rolls his eyes and heads inside.

Minho gets looks from other customers, but it's not in a worrying way. Any well-shaped boy with long eyelashes wearing a mask is going to draw eyes. At least on clear, mild nights like these, idols could mix with trainees and buskers and no one would be the wiser as to who is who. He's free to take his time.

He eyes up a pair of holographic trainers that would be killer to dance in. Also probably a little blinding. But definitely great for the next time he and Woojin went out for brunch and an impromptu fashion showdown-slash-photo-shoot. He finds his size and brings them to the register for safekeeping. The guy working register has silvery dyed hair and light color contacts in. He tugs his mask down when Minho hands him the shoes. "Hey, were you here a few weeks back?"

Minho blinks. "Yeah," he says. "Why?"

The guy shrugs. "I work Thursday nights. Just remembered you 'cause of the good taste." He holds up the shoes. "As you've proven once more."

Minho laughs. "Thanks, man." He holds out his hand and the guy claps it and pulls him in to bump shoulders. "I love all your shit."

The guy gestures to his own getup, all from Street A. "Trust me," he says. "I know. You need anything put on hold for you, or anything ordered special, you let me know, okay?"

"Deal," Minho agrees. "I'll make an effort to start coming on Thursdays."

The guy smiles.

Minho finds Jisung lingering by the jewelry at the front of the store, holding two sets of dangling earrings up to his ears and squinting in the mirror. Minho throws an arm around his shoulder. "Either work," he says.

Jisung looks at him in the mirror. "You think so?"

"Yeah," Minho says easily. "You're not cute either way."

Jisung punches him in the side and shakes his head. "So immature."

"Okay, seriously," Minho says, laughing. "Get the string of fakey diamonds. It's prettier."

Jisung sighs. "I don't know. Aren't they a bit flashy?"

"I like flashy!"

"It works on _you_ ," Jisung says.

"I like flashy on you," Minho says, pressing his cheek into Jisung's shoulder. He meets Jisung's eyes in the mirror. "It's weird for you to hide away or hold anything back."

Jisung purses his lips.

"Hey. Look at me." Minho straightens up and takes Jisung's chin, turning him towards Minho. Jisung's eyes are wide and black and shining. Minho can't read his expression beneath the mask, but it doesn't matter. "Yeah," he says. "You're always going on about your shiny eyes, aren't you? Perfect match."

"Wow," Jisung deadpans. "No matter how casual you tried to make it, that was the gayest thing you've ever said to me."

"Buy the damn earrings," Minho says, slapping Jisung's ass and making him yip.

"I'll try not to catch cooties from your boyfriend up there," Jisung says. "Though I think you've already infected me."

Minho rolls his eyes and watches Jisung trot up to the register. He waits. And waits. And then—there it is. The death glare when Jisung finds out how much the shoes cost.

_That's why we do it, folks_ , Minho thinks.

 

\---XXX---

 

As Jisung promised, the Hanssem superstore has a tiny mattress department. Depressingly small. Minho doesn't care to try them out. Instead, they terrorize the home goods section by trying to balance different kinds of cushions, cutting boards, bath towels, and spatulas on their heads. Jisung tries to balance a small metal pot on his head and it clatters to the floor, scaring the ghost right out of a nearby ahjumma. They run for it.

 

\---XXX---

 

For better or worse, Jisung is nothing like Minho.

Jisung is long and skinny where Minho is compact and firm. He's got his wild, shining eyes and Minho has half-lidded, glittering cat eyes. Their specialties are different. Jisung is the moodmaker of the group and Minho tends to ride off of other people's waves. Minho is distant where Jisung is too-close, too-much, too-emotional. Jisung didn't even _like_ Minho when he first came to the company. Stared hard at him and then glanced away when Minho caught him at it. Positioned himself at the other end of the room from Minho during dance lessons. No one should be surprised that their experiences with soulmates differ.

It's no secret that Jisung spent his high school years in Malaysia. He picked up a second language and an affinity for getting golden tan that lasted even through squirreling himself away to produce music with 3RACHA. It's also no secret that Malaysia prides itself in having the most comprehensive soulmate gurus in the world. Of course, that was a lot of hocus-pocus to the scientific community, but there was no shortage of testimonials on how the gurus helped people from all walks of life find their soulmates, and no shortage of people who were hardcore believers in the work the gurus did, including Jisung's parents.

It had come up pre-debut, after their reality show started airing, when they had all clustered in Chan and Changbin's bedroom and just started talking. Changbin made a joke about soulmate gurus, then they had talked about how weird it was to speed up an inevitable process, which led to talking about Malaysia, which had Jisung admitting, at length, that he had actually been to a soulmate guru.

"What?" Changbin barked. "Seriously? Not a joke?"

Jisung groaned and pressed his forehead into his knees. "No, not a joke. My parents are really into that stuff and I jokingly said that maybe I would go visit one. Before I knew it, I already had an appointment with the best guru in the region. Like, two weeks after I got there. It was so awkward."

Of course, they drilled him with questions. _What was it like?_ A normal office in a normal office building, with a soft-spoken receptionist and a lot of potted plants. _Did they dress funny?_ No, business casual. Obnoxiously normal. _How do they, you know, find your soulmate?_ She guided me into a meditative trance and helped trigger memory of my _temenos_ in greater clarity. It was more like she helped me figure my own shit out. And no, before you ask, I still haven't found my soulmate.

"Sounds like a hack," Seungmin muttered.

There was a general consensus across the group that given Jisung's experience and the extensive scientific work done on somnology, soulmate gurus had to be a load of bull. Even Jisung agreed with jerky nods to their statements. Minho stayed quiet, though. He watched. Not easily duped and ever the skeptic, Minho wasn't convinced that this was as cut and dry as it seemed.

It didn't come up again until after the vomit incident, after Minho and Jisung had wandered through their very first mattress shop and were settled on a pink blanket patterned with fried shrimp on a patch of secluded grass in front of the Han River. There were other families and couples scattered about the long stretch of picnicking grass, but no one strayed close enough to Minho and Jisung, dressed sloppily and without makeup, to identify them. Jisung was unwrapping their lunch boxes bundled in bright handkerchiefs—both the bundling and the lunch making Minho's handiwork—while Minho tilted his head back and let the soft moon of his face absorb the sunlight, when Jisung dropped the bomb on him.

"I wasn't really joking about the guru stuff," Jisung says quickly, too fast for Minho to catch.

Minho turns to look at him, squinting hard, one eye still closed. "What?"

"The soulmate guru stuff. I said I was joking but I wasn't."

Minho has to wrack his brain to recall that night, but he does vaguely recall Jisung being embarrassed to admit he went to see a soulmate guru when he lived in Malaysia. "Oh. Well, that makes sense. Your parents really wanted you too, right? Might as well take it seriously."

Minho remembers looking at Jisung's hands then, still half-threaded through the knot at the top of the bundle, tensed and stilled in the middle of unknotting. He remembers looking up to see Jisung's eyelashes fluttering as he blinked and tried to find the right words to explain what he meant, mouth a tiny pout. But, for as different as they were, Minho was not a fool.

"Oh," he says again. "You didn't do it for them. You asked to go."

Jisung nods once, terse.

Minho nods. "Okay." Takes the cap off his water bottle and fountains it into his mouth, then burps.

"That's it? Just 'okay'?"

"Were you expecting me to scream expletives at you?" Minho asks curiously. "You're interested in your soulmate; so what?"

Jisung blinks rapidly. "But you guys were saying how stupid the whole guru thing is and—"

"Correction," Minho says, " _they_ were saying soulmate gurus are stupid. _I_ said nothing. But they're right. It is pretty stupid."

Jisung flinches and takes a breath to protest.

"To spend money on something like that," Minho says. "You should talk to your somnologist about your soulmate if it's making you anxious; not a witch doctor. Like, when people spend money on an astrologist for fun, there's nothing wrong with that, but this is a real and serious part of your life. You should talk to a professional."

Jisung is quiet. He finishes unpacking their lunches, passing Minho's to him silently. They watch a dog play fetch with one of those balls that stick to a Velcro throwing stick, then watch the dog steal the throwing stick and one of the men in the family group get up to chase after the dog in a much more exciting game. Minho snorts. Jisung is still quiet.

Minho glances sidelong at him. "Does it bother you?"

"Does it _not_ bother you?" Jisung retorts. "Could be anyone. A fan, a trainee, another idol." He shivers. "A sasaeng."

"They're not going to be a sasaeng."

"That's not what all the fanfics say. Stalker always gets the boy."

"Ugh," Minho groans. "Really?"

"Yeah. Stalker or kidnapper. Always ends up with the idol in the end through the power of _temenos_."

"This is real life," Minho says. "What kind of horrible biological system would pair predators and victims together?"

"There've been cases like that before."

Minho grimaces. He knows. It wasn't hard to manipulate someone in an abusive relationship into professing that their abuser was their soulmate. Some people would even twist their _temenos_ to fit the story, regardless of what was on file with their somnologist. "That's what was bothering you? That you might end up paired with a stalker if you get famous? That's dark, dude."

"No, that's not—" Jisung sighs. "You'll laugh at me."

"I only laugh at you when you're funny."

Jisung purses his lips. Minho's head lolls across his shoulders to look at Jisung. He nudges Jisung's calf with a socked foot. "C'mon, Sungie."

"You're gross." But his shoulders relax. "I just want to know. It's stupid and cheesy. I just want to meet them already. As soon as possible. That's why my parents booked that appointment."

"You're excited to find them?"

Jisung nods. "And nervous."

Minho purses his lips and nods slowly. "Pretty gay."

" _You're_ pretty gay."

"You know it," Minho says, offering his fist to bump. Jisung rolls his eyes but bumps his fist anyway. "That's why I'm not pressed about you ruining my mattress, actually."

"Why? You gonna meet your soulmate in a mattress store?"

"Not in a mattress store," Minho says. "But on a certain mattress, yes."

"How do you..." Jisung pauses. "No, nevermind; I shouldn't ask."

"Touch domain," Minho says, wiggling his fingers. "My _temenos_ is the mattress and sheets I'm lying on."

"Dude!" Jisung squeaks. "You're not supposed to talk about that!" His eyes dart and he glances over his shoulder. Minho grins.

"It's 2019," he says. "How old-fashioned of you, Sungie."

Jisung glares at him. "It's _personal_. You should keep it to yourself."

"What, you've never told anyone?"

"Not since I was old enough to know better!"

Minho puts his chin in his hands. "You're being very cute about this. I'm a little attracted to you right now."

"Yeah, well, since we aren't boning on your new mattress, I guess you're out of luck."

"We could still bone on my new mattress." Minho wiggles his eyebrows. "I know you're not a virgin."

Jisung makes a noise of disgust and looks away, but there is color high in his cheeks and the tips of his ears. His throat bobs and Minho feels his heart flutter a little. _Oof_. He had been mostly joking, but Jisung getting shy and protective of the sanctity of _temenos_ really is cute. He feels the moment slide from playful teasing into true awkwardness and he clears his throat.

"Well, I don't really care for my soulmate, but it would be nice to not have to sneak around," he says.

"You're not that sneaky, hyung," Jisung says, rolling his eyes and still not looking at Minho. "We've all heard you at some point."

"And you think singing really loudly in the shower is subtle?"

Jisung flops onto his back with a long groan. "How can you not care about your soulmate, anyway? That's like…your ultimate, fated partner."

Minho shrugs. "I'm busy? We haven't even had our first anniversary. I don't have time to balance the great love of my life with my career. Of course I'm curious. Just not curious enough."

"I am," Jisung says softly.

Minho lies down too. "Do you want help finding them?"

Jisung turns his head. "How are you going to help me find them?"

"Well," Minho says. "I don't know the specifics of your _temenos_ , but we could go mattress shopping and look for your soulmate at the same time. Make a mission of it."

Jisung turns that over in his head. "It's not a bad idea," he says. A pause. Then a sigh. "It's in the domain of sound."

Minho blinks. "Their voice?"

"No, but god, wouldn't that be helpful?" Jisung pulls at the grass. "It's just background noise of a city. It's at night; and there's music playing. I can hear people speaking Korean. Near a street. That's all I know."

"How do you know it's at night if you can't see?"

Jisung shakes his head. "I just know."

It's like that sometimes. Minho gets it. He doesn't know how he knows it's his soulmate next to him on the left side of the bed just from the dip he creates in the mattress, but he knows. He never strays from the right side of the bed now, even in hotels, even during restless sleep. His body knows.

"So let's make a date of it," Minho says, propping himself up on his elbows. "We go at night, get dinner, then look for my mattress, then walk around down."

Jisung also sits up. "You paying?"

"For your bottomless pit? No way. We can trade off."

Jisung grumbles but agrees to the proposition.

His eyes fall to his hands. "I haven't talked to anyone about this before. Hyunjin a little, but..."

He doesn't need to say any more. Hyunjin is the right person to gush about soulmates with. He's tender-hearted and can keep a secret. Minho doesn't know anything about Hyunjin's soulmate but it's obvious Hyunjin, like Jisung, is actively looking for and thinking about them. Minho suspects Woojin knows more than the rest of them, but that's because Hyunjin is his baby. Hyunjin would understand Jisung perfectly, but...

Jisung leans his head on Minho's shoulder. In a few minutes, Minho will feed him slices of mango sympathetically and coo over his poor, tortured dongsaeng. And then Jisung will wrestle him into the grass and Minho will scream at him for getting grass stains on his jacket and then they'll wrestle some more and probably fall asleep on the shrimp blanket embracing each other.

Jisung's been treating his soulmate search with the same vigor and seriousness as he treats all his work. He needs something a little different.

 

\---XXX---

 

"What the hell is this?" Minho asks.

"Uh, a mattress store, obviously?" Jisung says.

Minho rolls his eyes. He can see that, but— "It's in _English_."

"And aren't you so lucky that a skilled English speaker is accompanying you on your quest for the world's choicest horizontal tango platform?"

"I wish I had never met you," Minho groans.

However, as they venture further into the mattress store 'Manifattura FALOMO,' and as Jisung's face becomes increasingly pinched with every mattress tag he reads, they discover that the mattress store is not in English at all, but Italian. Which might have been obvious from the colors of the Italian flag plastered all over brand's logo, if Minho and Jisung weren't imbeciles. Still, Minho is willing to give it a shot. They find a European expat who speaks passable Korean to help them find a mattress. He is all smiles and accented Korean, and Jisung is delighted to enlist him in their cause, gleaning information from him through a patchwork of broken Korean and English in order to find common ground.

"Arthur says this line is unique to their stores," Jisung reports. "No other department stores carry 'em."

Minho glances past Jisung to the employee and offers a little bow and quiet 'thank you' in English. "Arthur" seems thrilled to have been of use and hurls some parting words of thanks at Jisung that Minho can't catch. He bows deeply and leaves them, both Minho and Jisung offering short bows of their own. Once he leaves, Jisung turns to Minho with a face-splitting grin, the evil disguised by its perfect heart shape.

"Hyungie is so shy around older guys," he crows.

Minho punches him in the arm for real and Jisung squawks. "I'll kill you."

"It's cute! You're usually so weird and loud!"

"I am not _cute_ ," Minho hisses. "Refer to me as sexy or do not refer to me at all."

"It's okay, hyung," Jisung says, cuddling up to his shoulder like he hadn't just gotten socked in the arm. "Your secret charm is safe with me."

Minho grunts and walks towards the mattresses, Jisung skipping behind him.

The specialty mattresses are thicker than Minho expects. Their price tags are also pretty hefty—Jisung hisses and drops the price tag baggie when he sees the number of zeroes. But Minho is desperate. They migrate from mattress to mattress, wiggling and snuggling into the plush depths to no avail. Even turned to the side, with the store blasting air-conditioning and a weight on his other side, Minho can't reconcile the dreamy weight of his _temenos_ with the feeling of the mattress he's lying on now. He lets out a frustrated sigh and rolls onto his back, pressed up against Jisung.

"What if the right mattress is one that has been broken in?" Minho wonders aloud. "Like, what if none of these are right because the one that _is_ right isn't in pristine store condition?"

Jisung hums thoughtfully. "It's possible. That would suck."

Minho groans. "Maybe I should just buy one and stick with it until I die."

"You could," Jisung says. "Maybe giving up and going with one is part of your whole journey. Maybe no matter how much you search, you won't find the right one until you stick one out until the end."

Minho stares at the ceiling. "This one isn't too bad, is it?"

Jisung wiggles comfortably into the bed. "No," he says. "Not at all."

Arthur is thrilled to check them out and lets Minho know via Jisung that his mattress will be delivered one to two weeks from now.

 

\---XXX---

 

Okay, Minho hasn't exactly been truthful. With Jisung or with himself.

It's not the first time he's wondered if his soulmate mattress isn't a new mattress at all. It might not even be his own. It could be at his soulmate's apartment, it could be in a hotel, it could be a new mattress with a few years of sleeping wearing it in. Minho has considered this perspective from the very beginning, from the moment he opened his door to Jisung's puke all over his bed and thought, _Well, might as well go for it_.

Minho's insight into his _temenos_ is not that deep. He had the one meeting with his family somnologist as a kid, the second required meeting once he became an adult, and that's it. He's had the dream many times, but never considered it deeply. He hasn't had it since he started looking for mattresses.

It's possible he can't buy his way to his soulmate, but what's the harm in trying? He's having fun. He likes spending time and going to eat with Jisung. Trying out beds in the name of some great cosmic quest isn't half-bad either. It's almost routine at this point. And Minho hasn't been kicked out of a store thus far. Plus, even when he does choose to buy a mattress (could this be the right one?), if it isn't, he can always return it after sleeping on it for a few nights.

Buy; return. Buy; return.

It'd be so sad to end his search, wouldn't it? He and Jisung have worked so hard to find this mystery bed. All their members know about the search. Even some of the company trainees and sunbaes will ask him about it when he runs into them between practices. How can he put this search to bed without the bed in question? Just a little longer. A few more stores. A couple more new imports.

He's tried them all. The Tempur-Pedic that felt like he was being lowered into a Minho-shaped grave. The ultra-soft down mattress that he sank into. The water bed that he literally sank into, and floundered around in a desperate attempt to get out. The painfully hard beds that were touted to have some spiritual value. He even tried the ones with the built in heater. And the ones that vibrated. At one point he bought a new futon in hopes that maybe his soulmate wanted to sleep on the ground, for god's sake.

Buy and return.

What was it about a bed that made it so hard to commit to one? Jisung was likely right. All Minho had to do was buy a mattress and stick to it. Commit. Just fucking commit. Stop sleeping around with every brand in the business. Stop throwing away a bed after a couple nights' play. Don't you want to stop searching? Don't you want to sleep in a proper bed again? Don't you want to find your soulmate?

He does want to find his soulmate, doesn't he? At some point, surely.

And yet Minho resists. He calls the store in a panic to cancel the delivery the night before. He turns movers away at the door. He blames the discomfort of the bed on the bedframe, the squeakiness, some bump that hadn't been there before, the temperature of the store deceiving him, the sales associates talking him into something he doesn't want. He doesn't want this mattress; it has to go. Alright, he'll sleep on it just the one night. When he wakes up in the morning he hasn't slept all night and he still doesn't want the mattress. Just get it out. He fields questions from his bank about the large transactions being passed back and forth. Is it fraud? No, but Minho might be.

Changbin complains, once, that it's like Minho doesn't even _want_ a new mattress. He can sleep on the floor forever as far as Changbin is concerned. Chris offers up his own bed to Minho; says he can sleep anywhere so he'll just buy a shitty mattress and be done with it. Jeongin offers to share his bed more than a few times. No one understands why Minho is waffling so hard over this decision, or why Jisung lets him. _Jisung_ doesn't understand why he lets Minho hem and haw over what could be instead of forcing him to commit. Why can't Minho just _commit?_

It's not like a bed is a relationship. Committing to a mattress isn't committing to a _relationship_. It would be silly to think that. Even if Minho's soulmate will be met on a mattress, it's not like they'll get married as soon as they meet. Minho doesn't have to commit to him. Not yet.

Return it. Just return it. Minho doesn't want it. It sucks. That mattress just sucks. It's awful, really; he's going to burst into tears if he looks at it any longer. Didn't you hear him? He doesn't want it. He'll commit one day, probably. Or maybe he'll sleep on the floor like Changbin said, forever in limbo. Maybe Minho will never buy a mattress and he'll be happy with closet handjobs and hotel bathroom blowjobs. Relationships and beds are both overrated. Minho slept on a futon his whole life; he doesn't need one.

He'll be happy without one. He swears. He can be happy. He can.

 

**Author's Note:**

> i'm not on twitter at the moment, but in the mean time, maybe drop me a comment about what parts you liked?


End file.
